Officials: Man Was Casualty In Mob Conflict

It is a near carbon copy of the Depression era mob wars, replete with midday shotgun killings, bombed buildings and victims of gangland hits strewn about the landscape.

But this time the combatants are Canadians, not their American Mafia counterparts, who are shooting it out 1980s-style for control of the cocaine market, smuggled from the docks and airfields of South Florida and distributed on the streets of Montreal.

``The way the bodies are piling up, you would think this was 1930s Chicago and the Mafia wars had started all over again,`` said Sgt. Andre Savard, a homicide investigator with the Montreal police. ``I`m afraid it is becoming part of a regular routine around here. Because the profit in drugs is so great, gang murders here are becoming more frequent.``

The latest victim was David Singer, 29, of Montreal, whose body was found on the embankment of a Dania lake last May. A Florida Highway Patrol trooper was shot when he stopped the stolen, bloodstained getaway car driven by the killers shortly after the pair dumped Singer`s body.

In just 10 months, Singer and seven other members of a Montreal group known as the Westside Gang have been murdered. The gang, whose members are mostly of Irish ancestry, has existed since the 1950s.

Montreal police said Singer, a convicted drug trafficker in Canada and the United States, played a pivotal role in supplying guns, setting up victims for killings and committing murders in the fight for control of the Westside Gang.

According to police, Singer`s recent activities in the gang struggle included:

(BU) Setting up reputed Westside Gang leader Frank ``Doony`` Ryan, 47, to be killed. Ryan was found shot to death last November in a Montreal motel.

(BU) Three weeks after Ryan`s death, Singer is suspected of making a bomb that was used to blow up a Montreal apartment. The explosion killed Paul April, Ryan`s alleged killer, and three other Westside gang members. Twelve other apartment units were destroyed.

(BU) On March 25, gang member Eddie Phillips was shotgunned to death in the parking lot of a downtown Montreal restaurant. Police said Singer and a rider carrying a shotgun pulled into the lot on a motorcycle, shot Phillips and fled.

(BU) He was a key go-between in two failed attempts on the life of Larry Schleer, another person suspected of being a member of the gang. Police said Singer arranged two drug transactions with Schleer, which in reality were ``setups.``

Detectives in Montreal think Singer was killed because he knew too much about the Westside Gang slayings.

``We were really looking for him to pick him up before he got killed. We were second. They managed to kill him,`` Savard said.